Garamba National Park
The recently published LRA Crisis Tracker 2012 Annual Security Brief highlights the past 12 months of LRA activity. Included in the comprehensive analysis is the alleged LRA involvement in illegal ivory trade based on reports from numerous escapees. Officials in Congo’s Garamba National Park believe the LRA is deeply engaged in the illegal trade, with the groups’ presumed location making their participation even more likely.
Yesterday Uganda’s army reported that they recovered a cache of elephant tusks that it says was hidden by the LRA in the jungles of the Central African Republic. In a statement the army said that a squad of soldiers that is part of a mission hunting rebel leader Joseph Kony found the small stash of ivory following a tip-off from an LRA defector.
“These tusks, believed to have been hidden by the LRA, were located in a remote area of the bush to the north of Djema,” the statement said, referring to a town in the southeast of the Central African Republic.
In the statement the Ugandan army said that U.S. military representatives had “secured, documented and photographed” the tusks and that it was now in contact with Central African authorities to dispose of the ivory.
Seized ivory tusks are displayed at a Hong Kong customs press conference on Jan 4, 2013
In a New York Times article published in September 2012, it was reported that “some of Africa’s most notorious armed groups [including the Lord’s Resistance Army] are hunting down elephants and using the tusks to buy weapons and sustain their mayhem. Organized crime syndicates are linking up with them to move the ivory around the world, exploiting turbulent states, porous borders and corrupt officials from sub-Saharan Africa to China.”
A ranger at Garamba National Park arranges a collection of elephant tusks
With the increasing reports from the past year about the LRA’s involvement in the poaching of elephants, the threat of LRA violence now spans beyond innocent civilians. It’s another heartwrenching reality of the cruelty of the LRA, and another steadfast reason that their atrocities need to come to an end sooner rather than later.
(Photo credits: LRA Crisis Tracker, New York Times, AFP)
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